U.S. Marshals: Alleged sex offender from Iowa nabbed on NW Side

Staff report

A 36-year-old alleged sex offender from Iowa who had been the subject of a nationwide manhunt was captured this morning in the Albany Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side of Chicago, U.S. Marshals officials said this evening.

James Julius Beaudrie was arrested this morning at 7 a.m. in an apartment complex on the 4400 block of North Lawndale Avenue in the Albany Park neighborhood, according to police and marshals officials.

Officials had tracked Beaudrie to the apartment building where his mother was believed to be living, officials said. The man was wanted on a fugitive warrant after he fled Des Moines, marshals officials said in a press release.

As investigators made their way into the apartment, officials discovered that Beaudrie had fled through a rear door only minutes earlier to escape arrest, officials said.

After searching for the man, investigators found Beaudrie, who according to a wanted flyer weighs 440 pounds, hiding under a stairwell of the complex, officials said.

Beaudrie is in Chicago Police custody and is awaiting an extradition hearing, officials said.

He is wanted by Des Moines police after being charged with eight counts of third-degree sexual abuse of at least one of his nine children, officials said.

The warrant was issued on April 6 after police suspected that he may have fled Iowa, Marshals officials said.

The man's car was found abandoned at a Greyhound Bus Station in Salt Lake City. On April 17, The U.S. Marshals office offered a $3,500 reward for the man's capture.

U.S. Marshals officials had gotten leads about the man being in seven different states, including Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, Utah, Arizona and Oregon.